


And Now We Lead A Double Life

by KaelsMiscellany



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Leverage
Genre: Multi, Post Season 5, Superheroes, vaguely cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1416901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaelsMiscellany/pseuds/KaelsMiscellany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hardison gets an interesting proposition and Parker embraces her love of skintight costumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Now We Lead A Double Life

**Author's Note:**

> This was written on an impulse and kind of kept growing.

Alec long ago learned that there were some things he just couldn’t do: like grift, or jump off buildings, or fight all that well.

Now he can add ‘talk to Oracle’ to that list. His/Her/Their/It/Whatever’s logo/calling card/face took up all his screens and the digitized voice coming out of his speakers sounds amused. “Are you alright?”

They’re probably asking because he may or may not have screamed like a chick in a horror movie when said face apparent on his screens; drawing Oracle’s attention never boded well for hackers like him. “Uh, yeah,” he squeaks at the end, but damn it he’s totally justified in doing it.

The face doesn’t change, but Alec thinks it might be smiling. “I bet you’re wondering why I contacted you Alec Hardison.”

Actually he’s wondering if he should grab Parker and Eliot and run away to some backwoods cabin in the middle of Canada, or possibly Alaska, and give up on using anything more high tech than a rotary phone. But he’s not sure how well voicing that actual thought will go over; upside, Oracle totally knows his name. “Y. . .es?” At least he manages to sound halfway normal.

Which nets him an actual laugh, and he finds himself relaxing a little, because it’s an honest-ish –even though, you know, a _computer’s_ making it– laugh and he doesn’t think Oracle would be laughing at him like that if he were in Deep Shit. The laughter soon dies and the voice turns serious again. “I’m not going to insult your intelligence and assume you already know about Batman Incorporated.”

 _Of course_ he knows, it’s kind of all the internet can talk about right now.

“So I’ll get right to the point. You and your little crew have done some good, if by questionable means, work, and we’d like to offer you a job.”

 _Holy shit_ , Batman wants them to work for him? He’s totally not having a fangasm right now. Calm, think Eliot thoughts. “Can, uh, I talk it over first? With them?”

“Of course, I’ll contact you again in forty-eight hours.” The face vanishes and WoW pops back up on his screens, helpfully pointing out he’s currently dead. With a sigh he closes it down and decides he might as well get this conversation over with.

-

“Do you think they’ll want Eliot to wear a costume?” Is the first thing out of Parker’s mouth after he’s finished talking.

His brain stutters a little at the mental image of Eliot in a skintight bat costume. It’s a disturbingly wonderful one, and he’s never _ever_ going to admit it, to _anyone_.

“Oh! Maybe I’ll get to wear the costume.” In general Parker just seems excited by the idea of costumes. And before he can stop it, mental-Parker joins mental-Eliot in a equally skintight cat-suit, lounging over him like she hasn’t got a care in the world. And fuck no is he ever going to be a Robin.

Finally Eliot decides to join the not-really-a-conversation, “none of us are wearing costumes Parker.”

She pouts as she does a handstand on the kitchen counter, pointedly ignoring Eliot’s glower. “Why not?”

“Because we ain’t saying yes darlin’.”

Say what now? “Say what now?”

Eliot turns his glower on him. “Ain’t repeating myself Hardison. Getting involved with that mess would be disastrous.” 

“But Eliot, _costumes_.”

Which only gets her an annoyed-growl in response, but Alec thinks he might have a better angle of attack.

“Who the hell else are we gonna trust with the Book.” Because while he’d told Nate he’d leak it on the black-net, he doesn’t really trust most of those people further than he can throw them; and truth be told he’d already had a few thoughts about making overtures to Oracle about it, if anyone would best know how to use that for good it would be them.

Eliot’s eyes narrow. “What’d you tell them?”

He throws his hands up. “Nuthin’ I _swear_. But if we joined BI we would totally be better equipped to help people out, just the three of us. And we could parse out the Book to people we know would do good with it.” There were plenty of vaguely-shady supers out there who would probably be more than happy to take down the people who broke the world.

“Yeah, but I swore I’d look out for you two. You know how much harder that’ll be if some meta’s got you? I can hurt people, meta’s not so much. We start this and we’ll have a whole new bag of crazy to deal with.”

In the blink of an eye Parker’s off the counter and poking Eliot in the side. “But we’ll get masks, and we’ll have better training and know how to take down metas and Hardison and his internet people can make sure that no one connects hero-us to Leverage-us.” A glint appears in her eye, and Alec’s not sure if he’ll like whatever thought came into her head. “If we say yes I bet Batman’ll come to visit us. You two could totally train together.”

He can tell Eliot crumbles a little, because the idea of sparring with _Batman_ is apparently too good to pass up; and really Alec should have thought of that. “I’ll think about it,” Eliot grumbles.

Parker flashes him a victorious grin that Alec finds himself returning. “Well you got until Tuesday, that’s when Oracle’s calling back.” If you consider hijacking his computers ‘calling’.

Eliot makes a general grumble at the time-limit and starts making his way up to the greenhouse on the roof. When he’s go Parker gives him a look. “We should come up with names. I wanna be Bat-Thief!” Her nose did that cute wrinkle thing. “I changed my mind, you can call me Green Bat!”

Alec might have been smiling, but he still felt he should nip those ideas in the bud. “Mama, those are horrible names.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re just jealous ‘cause I thought of them first.”

He laughed at pulled her into a kiss.

-

In the end Eliot caved and said yes. And yeah, Batman came to visit, and so did Oracle –and he was totally jealous of her tricked out wheelchair, that thing was the shit– to get him set up on her system. Parker laughed at them both for being such fanboys, right up until Catwoman walked through the door.

He and Eliot managed to convince Parker that yes, while Green Bat sounded cool, she should maybe think of a different name. What about some sort of bird? Lots of birds under the Batman umbrella.

Eventually Parker settled on Flicker, partly because it could be shortened to ‘Flick’ and she found that hilarious, and then all they had to do was get Eliot to chose a name; Alec having already picked out his name years ago when he first heard about Oracle –Tiresias, because that’s how he rolled–.

Eliot refused to have a code name, citing them as ridiculous and pointless in his case; apparently some things were more frightening when they had no name at all. So for now they were humoring him and just calling him ‘E’.

When their costumes came Parker practically rolled herself up in hers; the colors, mottled grays and browns with flashes of orange, true to her bird of choice. Eliot’s wasn’t as flashy, just dark grays mostly and it didn’t look as silly as Alec’s original mental image led him to believe.

Parker then insisted they inaugurate their new costumes with copious amounts of sex. Which went over better with Eliot than Alec thought it would, like _worlds_ better.

-

“Flick watch your six.” In his ear Parker giggled as she flipped over a guy trying to rush her, sending him careening into the guy coming up behind her.

“Red Robin to Ty, you got a sec? I’ve got a computer problem with your name on it.”

Alec glanced once more at the security feed of Parker and Eliot who seemed to have the mobster goons well in hand. “Yeah Red, what’s up?”

“I need your help getting into. . .”Red Robin’s voice became narrating background as he pulled up a new window and began furiously typing.

And part of him wondered what Nate and Sophie would say next month when they came to visit.


End file.
